A business must have agile security

The DevOps Enterprise Summit London is right around the corner now and we're looking forward to gathering together with business directors, managers, executives and DevOps practitioners from around the globe who are wanting to take the next step in modernising their business. We will get to share successes and failures, tips and tricks, and inspire one another through expert keynotes, panels and breakout sessions.

One of our many fantastic speakers, Tom Clark, Head of Common Platform at ITV plc, answers some questions below about the business lessons he’s learned over the years through his experience in leading DevOps initiatives in the field. ITV, with nearly 6,000 employees, is an integrated producer broadcaster, operating the largest commercial family of channels in the UK. It was founded in 2016 with revenue of £755m.

Clark will be speaking at DOES London on Thursday, June 30, at 3:10 p.m. on ITV’s Common Platform.

DevOps Enterprise Summit: What part of your job is the most interesting to you and why?

Tom Clark: Leading the team that’s underpinning the largest modernisation programme ITV has ever undertaken.

DOES: What are the top 3 challenges enterprises face today and why?

TC: Recruiting and retaining staff—money isn’t enough, you’ve got to tick all the boxes and keep ticking them. Promoting the benefits of agility to the wider business—the rate of change is accelerating and only the quick will survive. Security—a business can’t be agile without agile security too and “DevSecOps” is a great response to this problem.

DOES: What top tip would you like to share with the rest of the community?

TC: Hire “smart” and “kind”. Smart is the ability to adapt to change (because the technology we use today won’t be the technology we use tomorrow). And kind is the ability to fit into your team—essentially don’t make room for brilliant jerks, they’re not worth the pain.

DOES: What was your a-ha moment when it first hit you that “this DevOps thing really works!”?

TC: Back in 2007 when sys admins were still sys admins, I worked at a start-up where the development and sys admin teams sat by each other and regularly crossed into each other’s domains. It worked brilliantly, I only wished I’d coined a catchy phrase to describe it at the time!

DOES: What success or failure made you learn the most and why?

TC: I founded a start-up called RSVPMe in 2005 and spent a year building features I thought were cool rather than releasing early and often and building features people wanted. This was an expensive mistake, but one I’ve never forgotten.

DOES: What should the DevOps community be focused on in the coming year?

TC: Security. We need to start integrating and/or building the tools that’ll let us be secure at scale and speed.

DOES: What new technologies are you keeping an eye on and why?

TC: Containerisation. We regularly use Docker in development, and I’m excited to see it in production via an orchestrator like Kubernetes.

DOES: What are some of the top tips you’ve received?

TC: You’ve got two ears and one mouth. Listen twice as much as you speak.

DOES: Just for fun question: Dead or alive, who would you like to eat dinner / drink / code / compare war stories with?

TC: My Grandfather. He was an Electrical Engineer who worked on radar in WWII and encouraged me to be inquisitive when I was young. That set me on the path to where I am today.

Join Tom Clark at DevOps Enterprise Summit London!

Want to spend two full days concentrating on solving your biggest business IT challenges? The inaugural DevOps Enterprise Summit London event brings a community together from multiple industries and more than a dozen countries across the world. The purpose? To identify and amplify the best practices in DevOps based on practical advice presented through personal stories told by fellow business technology leaders. If you haven’t registered yet for the event, it’s not too late (but tickets are going fast!). You can still sign up here.